Bomb Survivors Use Nobel Peace Prizes to Share Anti-Nuclear Message World News

With the honor of the Nobel Peace Prize, we now have the responsibility to convey our message not only to Japan, but to the entire world.

The honor rewards members' grassroots efforts to tell their stories, even if that involves remembering the terrible ordeal during and after the bombing and facing discrimination and anxiety about their health due to the chronic effects of radiation, with the sole purpose of never allow this to happen again.

Now, with an average age of 85.6 years, hibakusha are increasingly frustrated because their fears of the growing nuclear threat and the pressure to eliminate nuclear weapons are not fully understood by younger generations.

The number of hibakusha groups in the province decreased from 47 to 36. And the Japanese government, under the aegis of US nuclear protection, refused to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

But there is hope and a youth movement appears to be beginning, the Nobel committee noted.

Three high school students accompanied Mimaki to City Hall, standing by her side as the award winner was announced and promising to keep her activism alive.

I got goosebumps when I heard the announcement, said Wakana Tsukuda. I felt discouraged by the negative outlook on nuclear disarmament, but the Nobel Peace Prize renewed my commitment to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Natsuki Kai, another high school student, said, “I will continue my efforts so that we can believe that nuclear disarmament is not a dream, but a reality.”

In Nagasaki, another group of students celebrated Hidankyo's victory. Yuka Ohara, 17, thanked the survivors for their efforts over a year, despite the difficulties. Ohara said she heard her grandparents, who survived the bombing of Nagasaki, repeatedly tell her the importance of peace in everyday life. I want to learn more as I continue my activism.”

In April, a group of people created a network, the Japan Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, connecting young generations across the country to work with survivors and continue their efforts.

Efforts to document survivors' stories and voices have increased in recent years across Japan, including Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Tokyo. In some places, young volunteers are working with hibakusha to successfully tell their personal stories.

140,000 people died in the first US atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima. A second atomic attack on Nagasaki, on August 9, 1945, killed another 70,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15, ending nearly half a century of aggression in Asia.

Hidankyo was formed 11 years later, in 1956. There was a growing anti-nuclear movement in Japan in response to US hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean, which resulted in a series of radiation exposures by Japanese boats, increasing demands for government assistance for problems of health. .

As of March, 106,823 survivors had been certified as eligible for government medical assistance, down from 6,824 the previous year, and nearly a quarter of the total in the 1980s, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare. They, including many others, still have no basis in saying that the radioactive blackout occurred outside the initially designated area of ​​Hiroshima and Nagasaki.